Sunday, July 4, 2010

BirdCam Fun!

I bought a Wingscapes Audubon BirdCam to put on my feeders down in the woods. I can't sit down there and watch the feeders, so I let the BirdCam take pictures of the birds that visit them. It's a motion-activated camera that only takes pictures when a bird moves in front of it. I was impressed with the quality of the photos. Even when I cropped them quite a bit, the clarity was still there without the pixels showing up. One of my feeders is simply a log about two feet long. I drilled a couple of 1" holes about 2" deep in it. I put Jim's Birdacious Bark Butter in it. Before I got the BirdCam, I knew something was eating it, but didn't know what. I was excited to find an adult female Red-bellied Woodpecker, a juvenile male Red-bellied Woodpecker and a Hairy Woodpecker. The Hairy Woodpecker was property bird #195 for me! I pointed the BirdCam to the tube feeder and got several pictures of Carolina Chickadees and Tufted Titmice. I decided to try the video function on it and pointed it at the log feeder again. I wasn't as impressed with the clarity of it. The videos are kind of grainy. Maybe I'm not doing something right on it. I'm really looking forward to this winter when Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers, Northern Flickers, Yellow-rumped Warblers, Ruby-crowned Kinglets and others might use the feeders. I could get some great shots of spring migrants in April, such as Indigo Buntings and Painted Buntings. Anyway, here are some of the pictures and a video taken with the BirdCam. (The noise in the video is the baffle being blown by the wind.)







































No comments: